Story by
Doppelgänger Shockwave
________________________________________________________________
Page
1
Murder.
It was all too clear to George
Janos
when he began to feel his lungs constricting inside of his
barrel-sized chest as he fell from the dining room table. His killer,
a buxom tall six-foot-one bleach blonde tart named Marissa
Hutchens,
stood over him with a glass of Merlot
in her right hand--her arms crossed while she watched him drag his
six-five 390 pound carcass across her dining room floor for the front
door.
Marissa
impatiently tapped her long red-painted fingernail on her ring finger
across the body of her wine glass before taking a sip of the sweet
red nectar.
“Hurry
up and die, you fat sack of crap,” Marissa shrieked at the burly
man dying on her kitchen floor while Tchaikovsky's
Piano
Concerto thunderously
played on the living room stereo.
Marissa
then tossed the rest of her red wine onto George's face as he lied on
his back asphyxiating from the hydrogen
cyanide
she had slipped into his favorite Hungarian soup.
“You
really thought you were going to fuck me again tonight, didn't you,”
Marissa charged derisively. “Well think again, you pompous prick!
Tonight it's me who is finally going to be fucking you! And
you-you-you sorry excuse for a man,” Marissa uttered in frustration
as she ferociously kicked George in the right side of his rib cage
with her black seven-inch heels. “You will pay for your sins
against me, motherfucker!”
And
just like that, George was dead.
Marissa
showed no remorse for her former boss as his lifeless body lied there
on her oak floor. Yesterday George fired Marissa for her scientific
research and confiscated all of her work on a highly controversial
drug which was still in early development. The drug was supposed to
give the human brain the ability to regrow severed limbs, but the
drug proved to be too volatile. During clinical trials, seven
participants violently died when
________________________________________________________________
Page
2
their
brain exploded inside their skull. George accused her of unethical
use of company property and told Marissa that the only reason he
wasn't getting the police involved was that all of the participants
were homeless war veterans, and no one was going to give a damn about
them.
This
morning Marissa called up George and invited him over for dinner
under the false pretenses that she wanted to discuss getting her
research back, but George didn't want to hear about it. Well, not at
first anyway. Then George got to thinking. Big mistake. He should've
just hung up the phone instead. But being the pig he was, George
thought he could get between her thighs one last time for old-time's
sake seeing how they did briefly have an affair and all. Marissa
began to tease old Georgie over the phone, tempting him with her
sexual prowess, intensifying her faux southern accent with each and
every squeal George would make. You see, Marissa is quite the fraud.
She and her family are originally from Portland, Oregon, and they've
only lived in Odessa, Texas for the last six years. Marissa Hutchens
isn't even her real name, but that's for another story.
Marissa
knew she would never get her research back, so she decided to put
George out with the rest of the world's garbage.
It
was going to be a very long night for Marissa. She knew she had to
dispose of the wrinkly sack of big bones before he started to smell,
so she took the gargantuan corpse of her former boss by his tie and
drug him into the garage with all her might across the newly waxed
floor.
“Jeezis
Chrysler, George! Did you really have to release your bowels just
now,” Marissa chided at the corpse of her former boss just as the
tie tore in two. “Shit! What in the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
Marissa
soon remembered the crowbar she had in the garage. She quickly
grabbed it, and hooked it into the roof of his mouth and drug him
into the garage.
________________________________________________________________
Page
3
“Ungh,”
Melissa grunted as she pulled the nearly 400 lb corpse into the
garage with both hands on the steel bar. “Couldn't you have at
least lost some weight before I killed you? No, I guess that's asking
for too much, isn't it old Georgie? Just as it was too much for you
to handle my request for a grant for my research into manipulating
the human brain to regenerate lost limbs, right? So what if every
test subject died a horrible death? Some have to die so that others
may live. I guess your lard butt never did understand that part of
the equation.”
Marissa
took the axe her brother Geoff had given her for Christmas so she
could chop up firewood and put it to good use. After she hacked
George to bits, she stuffed his remains into several lawn trash bags.
Later
that night, after Marissa cleaned up all of the blood, bile, and wine
in the house, she threw George's remains into the back of her Chevy
Equinox
and drove his hacked carcass off into the Texas desert about 75 miles
from her home. Marissa then dug a hole five feet deep and buried the
remains along with the axe.
Just
as the dawn was coming on, Marissa got back into her SUV and headed
home. Marissa almost called in sick, but she quickly snapped out of
her momentary lapse of memory and headed for the most comfortable
place in her defiled home--her bed.
When
she awoke at noon, the house wreaked of bleach. Marissa opened up all
of her windows to air out her home. She then stripped off her pj's
and jumped into the shower. The hot water felt good as it patted
against her breasts.
George's
blood was a real pain to get off her skin, especially in the pelvic
region. How his blood got there, Marissa couldn't tell you. She
scrubbed her body until the water turned ice cold.
Just
as she turned off the water, the phone began to ring. Water dripped
from her body as she walked back to the living room to answer the
frantically ringing phone.
________________________________________________________________
Page
4
“Hello,”
Marissa answered. “Marissa Hutchens,” the strange voice replied
on the other end.
“Yes,
who is this?”
“My
name is Richard Dudikoff. I'm a reporter with Science
Journal,
and I'd like to talk to you about a new research I hear you're
involved.”
“And
what research is that, Mistah Dudikoff,” Marissa replied.”
“The
one where you're experimenting with a new drug that will cause the
human brain to regenerate detached extremities.”
Marissa
paused for a moment, but her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the
reporter on the phone.
“If
you have the time, Miss Hutchens, I would very much like to meet with
you at your home for an interview this evening at say five? I'm only
in town for the day, so I could easily have a cab take me to your
home if that's okay with you.”
Marissa
thought for a moment about what Richard had proposed. She was
skeptical about the man at first. She couldn't understand how he knew
about the drug when she had not divulged her research to anyone but
George, and George didn't know until the day he fired her. Was one of
the participants a stooge? She became paranoid at first, wondering if
she wasn't being set up for criminal charges against her.
Marissa
quickly put that all out of her mind. This was the chance of a
lifetime to expose her work to the public. She knew she couldn't have
the reporter over, however. The house stunk like a garbage can filled
with bloody tampons, chemical containers, and wine bottles.
“Mistah
Dudikoff, I'm afraid my home simply won't do,” Marissa said in a
tender northern imitation of a southern accent. “Ya see, I have
relatives ovah, n' they're all quite nosy. They
________________________________________________________________
Page
5
don't
know about my research yet, n' I don't wanna let them in on it until
I have the cure figured out. Perhaps I could come over n' talk with
ya at the hotel yer residin' in. Would that be okay?”
“Sure,”
Richard replied. “That would be just fine. I'm staying at the MCM
Grande Hotel.
Do you know where that is?”
“Oh
yes, I sure do.”
“Good.
When you come into the lobby, and they'll contact me. See you at
five!”
Marissa
laid down her phone and looked around her home. It was a mess. Last
night's dinner was still on the dining room table, and her clothes
laid in the corner of her bedroom. Marissa knew she had to get rid of
her bloody black dress, shoes, and undergarments, so she lit a log in
the fireplace and threw them all into the fire. While the fire burned
the last remaining bits of evidence, she grabbed a trash bag from
underneath the kitchen sink and began to toss the leftover food into
the bag, except the soup. She poured it down the drain, and threw the
bowl and spoon into the trash bag.
Marissa
quickly got dressed and hopped into her SUV to go to the hotel to
speak with Richard about her research.
When
Marissa arrived, she spoke with the bellhop, but they had never heard
of Richard Dudikoff, and the logs did not show that anyone had
checked in under that name. She asked the bellhop if there was any
other MCM Grande Hotels in town, to which the bellhop replied--
“Sorry,
but we're the only one in town.”
Marissa
knew she was being duped, but who it was she could not figure out.
Frustrated, she drove back home. When she got back inside her phone
rang again.
“Marissa
Hutchens? This is Richard Dudikoff with the Science Journal. Did you
forget about our meeting at 5 pm today,” the
________________________________________________________________
Page
6
strange
voice said on the other side of the phone.
Marissa
was furious. She wanted to ring Richard's neck. She was seething, and
yet Marissa didn't speak a word.
“Marissa?
Are you there, dear? Look, I still want to interview you. Could I
please stop by your home tonight at 7 pm before my plane leaves for
New York? ...Marissa?”
“Sure,
Richard--if that's even your real name,” Marissa replied without
her phony southern accent.
“Marissa,
what happened to your accent? Everything okay? You sound angry.”
“I'm
just fine, Richard. Just. Fine. I showed up at the MCM Grande Hotel
you told me you were staying at, and they told me they had no one by
your alleged name.”
“Oh
dear, I am so sorry, Marissa. I gave you the wrong hotel. I'm
actually at the MCM
Eleganté.
I tried to book the other place, but they were packed due to a
convention. Marissa, please forgive me for my error. I did not mean
to mislead you. I will make it up to you tonight when I come over to
your house. You live on Eastridge Road, correct?”
“Yes,”
Marissa replied with a slight skepticism in her voice.
“Oh
good! Well--I will see you tonight at seven then. Goodbye, Marissa!”
Marissa
didn't believe Richard's story for one second. Someone was trying to
get one over on her, and whomever it was would pay dearly for their
transgressions.
Marissa
prepared herself for Richard's arrival. She opened her medical kit
and took out the highly experimental drug that had caused seven
people to die. This vile was the only thing she was able to walk away
with as it was hidden well inside of her vagina. If anything were to
go awry, Richard would experience the painful death that only this
drug could deliver.
Just
as Marissa was re-applying her last bit of lipstick, the doorbell
rang. As she answered the bell, a short and slender man
________________________________________________________________
Page
7
with
an outdated brown sports coat, drab tie, black-rimmed glasses, kinky
shoulder length brown hair and a full beard stood outside her door.
“Hi,
Marissa. I'm Richard Dudikoff. May I please come in?”
Marissa
looked Richard over, sizing him up. She then raised her right eyebrow
slightly and battered her eyelashes before she scoffed and walked
away towards the couch in her living room.
“Mistah
Dudikoff,” Marissa said as his name soured in her mouth. “Before
we go any further, I have to ask ya somethin'.”
“Hey,
your accent is back,” Richard quipped back in a half-joking tone.
“Um...Sure. You can ask me anything you like. And please, call me
Richard.”
“How
did ya find out about my research? Nobody knew I was workin' on this
new drug.”
“Oh,
well someone named George Janos called me up last week to tell me
about some new research, and he just happened to mention your name.”
Marissa'
jaw dropped. She couldn't understand why George would call up someone
at the Science Journal, only to turn around and fire her for her
unethical practices on human test subjects. She quickly walked off
into the kitchen and poured herself a full glass of wine, and juiced
it like it was water. She poured another glass for herself, and one
for Richard, and walked back into the living room where Richard stood
as he looked at photographs of Marissa' former colleagues on the
mantle above the fireplace.
“Mistah
Dudi--I mean, Richard. Now Richard, are ya certain that George Janos
called ya up to talk with ya about my research?”
“Oh...No,'
Richard retorted. “Mister Janos didn't actually call me about you.
He called to tell me about his research on
________________________________________________________________
Page
8
creating
a new revolutionary drug that would allow the human brain to
regenerate lost limbs. He just happened to mention you were his
assistant.”
“What...,”
Marissa responded.
Marissa
was devastated that George was trying to steal her life's work from
her just so he could take credit and get his name in the Science
Journal. And for what? A drug which caused seven people's brains to
explode like a bottle rocket. Something didn't add up.
“Wait...If
George is taking credit for the drug, then why do you want to talk to
me for,” Marissa said in a suspicious tone as she dropped her faux
southern accent again.
“Seriously?
You haven't heard? Mister Janos is dead. They found his remains this
morning in the desert, just outside of Big Spring. He was apparently
hacked to bits. They even found the murder weapon in his makeshift
grave.”
Marissa
smashed grabbed a nearby wine glass sitting on the fireplace's
banister and smashed it. She then put the razor-sharp glass next to
Richards aorta as he sat on the couch.
“Now
listen here, you little shit! I don't know who in the hell you are,
but if you don't answer all of my questions truthfully I'll gut your
ass and filet you like a fish! Now who in the fuck are you, and do
you know, little man?”
Richard
was in a state of panic. He began to stammer, muttering incoherent
sentences, and urinating all over his gray corduroy pants.
“P-P-Please,
d-d-don't hurt m-me,” Richard sniveled. “W-What do you w-want to
kn-kn-know,” Richard stammered.
“Who
told you George Janos was dead,” Marissa replied.
________________________________________________________________
Page
9
“It-It-It
was in the n-n-news th-this m-morning! D-Don't you have a
t-t-t-television?”
Marissa
paused again before she responded. She didn't want to let on she was
George's killer after all.
“Did
they say how they find his body?”
“He
was b-buried near an oi-oil well. Whoever bu-buried him mu-must've
st-struck an oil de-de-deposit b-because his g-grave was f-flooded
with oi-oil!”
“Richard,
I am so sorry for losin' my cool with ya. I've had a very rough week.
Ya see George didn't create the drug. I did. And now yer tellin' me
he was takin' credit for my work after he fired me?!”
“W-What?
Wait a minute? You created it? And he fired you over the drug,”
Richard said as he stumbled off of the couch.
“Yes,
that's right,” Marissa said in her exaggerated fake southern
accent.
“But
why,” Richard replied.
“Well,
seeing how he called ya, I think George wanted his last claim to
glory just before he died. Just to let ya in on a little secret.
George was 79-years-old, okay, n' he was in need of a heart
transplant, ya see? Well, the doctors told him they wouldn't operate
on him until he lost 90 pounds. I guess he thought he was gonna die.”
“Wow!
Okay then. Well..,” Richard trailed off. “...But who would want
to...”
Richard
stopped himself because he suddenly realized he was in even more
trouble than before. Richard lightly cleared his throat, and started
to walk backwards towards the front door.
“You
know something, Marissa. I just realized my plane is about to leave,
so I better hurry and get to the airport, so I don't miss it. I'll
call you when I get to New York, and we'll
________________________________________________________________
Page
10
have
a proper interview over the phone, okay?”
“Wait
one blasted second there,” Marissa shot back at the nervous
reporter. “Who in the hell said that you were going anyway, you
little pipsqueak?”
Marissa
towered over Richard, with a mere five-six stature to her long and
vivacious six-one.
Richard
tried to run for the front door, but Marissa stabbed him through his
back and chest with a cold steel firewood poker. Richard died
instantly from the shock.
Just
then someone showed up at her door to ring her bell. In a panic,
Marissa pulled Richard into her laundry room and threw him onto the
cool cement. She quickly shut the door and answered the bell.
“Yes?
May I help ya, ma'am,” Marissa said with a spurious smile and her
fraudulent accent.
“Evening,
miss. I'm Inspector Rachel
Duke
with the Odessa
Police Department.
I understand George Janos was your boss, and I'd like to ask you some
questions if you don't mind.”
Inspector
Duke was a beautiful blonde with a vivacious figure, with a medium
stature of five-eight. Her piercing blue eyes could make even the
worst liars tell the truth. A veteran on the force for 25-years, the
inspector could tell when someone was trying to bullshit their way
out of a bad situation.
“Now
let me see here,” the inspector said as she looked through her
notes. “Your name is Marissa
Lynn Hutchens,
correct,” the inspector asked while she tried to look past Marissa
standing in the doorway.
“Why
yes, yes it is,” Marissa replied in her most disingenuous southern
accent.
“Miss
Hutchens, are you aware that Mister Janos was murdered last night?”
________________________________________________________________
Page
11
Marissa
started to phone in some tears to give the inspector the illusion
that she was genuinely torn over his death.
“Oh
Gawd yes,” Marissa concurred as her phony accent got thicker and
longer drawn with each syllable while her tears ran away from her
eyes like a chicken who was being chased by a stallion. “I couldn't
believe it when a reporter called me up to talk about his untimely
death. Did ya know he was workin' on a drug that would cause the
human brain to regenerate lost limbs?”
“No,
ma'am, I didn't,” the inspector replied.
“Well,
just between yourself and I, it was a hoax of a drug. I mean the
tests caused seven people's brains to explode inside their skull like
a hand-grenade. Do you think that could've been why someone would've
hacked George to bits and then bury him in an oil patch out near Big
Spring?”
The
inspector knew Marissa wasn't playing with a full deck. The smell of
bleach began to fill the insides of the inspector's nostrils. That's
when she knew she was onto the killer's trail.
“Miss
Hutchens. What is that pungent aroma coming from your home? Is that
bleach I'm smelling?”
Marissa's
eyes grew slightly as she began to circulate a believable lie in her
head.
“I'm
afraid so, inspector. I was in the middlah cleanin' my floors, n'
washin' my whites when ya came a-knockin'. Now if'n ya don't mind,
I'd like to finish up before I have to go to bed.”
“All
right, ma'am. I have just one more question. Where were you last
night at about 3:30 in the morning?”
“I
was asleep in my bed. Is that it, inspector?”
“For
now it is. All right, well I'll be in touch with you if I need
anything else. Have a good night, Miss Hutchens.”
Inspector
Duke got into her Lincoln
Continental
and drove off
________________________________________________________________
Page
12
for
the city morgue.
Something
isn't right about that woman,
the inspector thought to herself. I
can't prove it yet, but I think she killed Mister Janos.
Chief
Coroner, Michael Bellows, presided over the murder case of George
Janos. Michael was about five-ten, bald, with chocolate for skin and
cotton for a beard. He'd served as the city's coroner for nearly
45-years.
“Hey,
Mike. What do you have for me tonight on the Janos case,” the
inspector asked the coroner.
“Evening,
Rachel. Well...It looks like Mister Janos was poisoned with hydrogen
cyanide before he was chopped to bits with this here axe,” the
coroner replied. “Now, there's no way we could pull any
fingerprints off the weapon. It's completely drenched in crude oil.
We were, however, able to track down a list of people who have bought
this particular axe in the last six months thanks to a little
research on that computer over there.”
The
inspector skimmed over the list, and a name quick stuck out--Geoff
Hutchens. The address was the same as Marissa's.
Just
as Inspector Duke pulled up to the house with a warrant she saw
Marissa running into the house. The inspector knew she had her
suspect dead to rights.
Inspector
Duke called in for backup as she pulled out her Colt
.45
and approached the house with caution. She knocked on the door and
announced herself.
“Marissa
Hutchens, this Inspector Rachel Duke with the Odessa Police
Department! I have a warrant for your arrest! Open the door, and come
out peacefully with your hands above your head where I can see them!”
________________________________________________________________
Page
13
Just
then a loud bang rang out as buckshot blasted a hole the size of a
watermelon through the door. The inspector hit the deck of the home's
porch just in time.
The
inspector rolled off the porch and onto the grassy yard. She quickly
brought herself up onto her left knee and pulled out her revolver.
She then aimed at the hole in the door and pulled her gun's trigger
three times while gripping her right wrist firmly to reduce recoil.
Inspector
Duke then got up and ran to the back of the house as she heard the
back screen door slam against the door frame. It was hard to see,
seeing how it was night and no lights surrounded the house, so the
inspector pulled out a miniature flashlight from her orange leather
sports coat's left pocket.
Just
then an engine roared to life as the headlights of a classic Ford
Mustang
revved to life. The car barreled down the alleyway towards the
inspector. She quickly leaped out of the way into a tall grass field
and fired two shots at the tires of the Mustang. Sadly both shots
missed as the car slid out onto the road. Inspector Duke ran back to
her unmarked squad car and took off after the hot rod.
Zipping
through nighttime traffic, the inspector was hot on the Mustang's
trail. Having no time to safely replenish her revolver, the inspector
popped open her glove compartment and pulled out a Glock
17.
The
inspector quickly fired four shots out her window at the Mustang,
popping its tire—causing the car to flip and roll off into a former
mechanic shop's garage door.
Marissa
and Geoff climbed out of the demolished Mustang and ran into the shop
to find a place to hide. Inspector Duke came to an abrupt stop and
ran towards the building after them as a patrol car with two officers
pulled up to inspect the wreckage.
“Evening,
gentleman,” the inspector said to the officers in uniform.
“Inspector Rachel Duke before you. We have two dangerous suspects
who may have murdered one George Janos this morning. One of them has
a shotgun and has opened fire upon yours truly, so be
________________________________________________________________
Page
14
extra
careful. You two go around back, and I'll try to snuff them out.”
The
inspector took out her miniature flashlight again and proceeded with
caution into the abandoned mechanic shop. The musk was strong inside
as dust hung in the air.
Just
as the inspector walked past a steel shelf, Geoff, a gangly looking
sort with long stringy hair and coke-bottle glasses pointed his
shotgun at the back of Inspector Duke's head.
“Stop
right there, or I swear I'll blow your fucking head off, lady,”
Geoff shouted at the inspector. “Now toss your gun and turn
around.”
The
inspector complied and slung her gun a few feet away. As she turned
towards Geoff, Marissa walked up to greet the inspector.
“Hello,
Inspector Duke. I guess you know by now that I killed George Janos,”
Marissa said to the inspector without hesitation. “Let me assure
you that I had a very legitimate reason. You see, George was a thief
and a real bastard. He stole my research for a new drug I was working
on that would allow the human brain to regenerate lost limbs, and
then he fired me and confiscated all of my work claiming I was
misusing company property. Initially, I thought that George just
couldn't understand what I was trying to do, but thanks to a
journalist, who I sadly had to kill to keep from going to the police,
provided me with the truth. And now, here we are. You can either let
me go, or you can die like the others. It makes no difference to me,
honey, 'cause see--I'm a total narcissist, and I couldn't care less
who lives or dies anymore. That bastard broke me, and everyone is
collateral damage at this point.”
Just
then the officers walked in on Marissa and Geoff. At first, they
didn't say anything. Both were trained Marines, fresh
________________________________________________________________
Page
15
out
of serving in the Middle East, so they knew when to talk and when to
listen. While they stood 10-feet behind Marissa and Geoff, Inspector
Duke tried to play it cool.
“So
let me get this straight. You took two men's lives over a new drug,
without an ounce of remorse? So why help people out by creating this
new miracle drug?”
“Simple.
I did it for the notoriety. I could not even give an ounce of fucks
about whether it really helped people or not. I already killed seven
people with it, why not a million more?”
“You
are one sick puppy, lady.”
“All
right, hold it right there, you two,” one of the officers spouted.
In
a panic Geoff fired at one of the officers, hitting them in their Kevlar vest. The inspector went for her gun and fired three shots
into Geoff's back straight at his heart. Marissa bolted for the
nearest exit but caught a bullet in her left thigh from the other
officer.
“Oww,
goddammit,” Marissa shouted. “You stupid son-of-a-bitch! You hit
my fucking leg!”
“Lady,
you are under arrest,” Inspector Duke said as she handcuffed
Marissa. “You have the right to remain silent, and I highly
recommend that you do just that because anything you say from this
moment forward will be used against your sorry self in a court of
law. Do I make myself clear?”
Inspector
Duke picked Marissa up and hauled her off to the officer's patrol
car.
“Inspector,”
the officer spoke. “Why are you sticking her in my squad car? She's
gonna bleed all over until an ambulance gets here for my partner.”
“I
don't need her ruining my seats. My car's simply too nice for that
kind of mess.”
